Top secret

A-grade journalism from Vickey Lalwani of Mumbai on the web. This is from January 3rd.

Santosh Sivan began shooting yesterday on an English film titled Kerala (working title) — a film starring Rahul Bose, Nandita Das and two British actors.

Sivan is also the cinematographer of the film. The film is being jointly produced by Los Angeles-based Echo Lake Productions, Adirondack Pictures of New York and Santosh Sivan Productions.

Kerala is set in the pre-1950 period and contains lots of passion and conflict. Some actors from the Malyalam industry will also make the grade, and there will be a dialogues in Malyalam too.

According to sources, “The film will be entirely shot in Munnar and it was difficult to convince the British actors to shoot there.”

We called Nandita Das, but she was busy. “I am in a meeting in Cochin. I can’t talk to you right now,” she said hurriedly. Rahul Bose was forthcoming.

He said, “Yes, I will be working with Nandita Das. But I am sorry that I can’t tell you about my character in the film, except for the fact that it’s a pivotal one. I have been sworn to secrecy and I can’t break anybody’s trust.”